Quips, queries, and querulous quibbles from the quirky mind of Don Kahle

KUGN – Sanipac

If you live in Eugene, you’ve probably received a huge blue container on wheels from Sanipac for all your recyclables except glass. For most of us, this makes three: blue for recycling, green for trash, and brown for yard debris. A single driver can now whisk past every other week, thereby saving money. May I make a few predictions? One year from now, the city will pass an ordinance making it illegal for people to leave their bins at the curb except on pick-up days. In five years, half of us will be required to cross the street because the bins will be collected from only one side of the street. On-street parking will be forbidden on that side on that day. The trash company will own the street, but you’ll still get to live on it. Ten years from now, the trash company will issue every household with a super-bin to contain all the other bins and require home owners to tow their superbin to the nearest park-and-ride for regional pick-up. Twenty years from now, the streets will be torn up and replaced with vacuum tubing that will connect under every kitchen sink, sucking trash from the home directly to the processing center and then on to the landfill. You heard it here first.